By Don Mohler
November 5, 2024 shook me to my core. In 2016, much to the chagrin of many of my friends, all of my political instincts told me that Donald J. Trump was about to become the 45th President of the United States. I read the tea leaves for months and was prepared for what was about to take place. Not being surprised did not make the outcome any less painful, but there was little shock and awe in my world.
This past November was different. There was no doubt in my mind that Americans would reject a return to chaos and elect Kamala Harris as the 47th President of the United States. When early returns from rural North Carolina made it clear that I was very, very wrong, I was devastated.
My answer to that devastation was to go into hiding. While I still watched a bit of Morning Joe and scanned a variety of news sources to start my day, I simply put my head in the sand. I turned off the news, and I stopped engaging with friends and foes about politics in the United States. I was prepared to let the madness play out and focus on the joy of family and friends. The events of the past ten days make it clear that such behavior is unacceptable, and in fact, cowardly.
Make no mistake about it, the madness is here. Project 2025 is being implemented right before our very eyes, and cruelty appears to be a central value of Trump 2.0. Cabinet nominees are not only unqualified to run a lemonade stand, but they are also disgusting on many levels. This is not a drill, and people all over the country are terrified, and rightfully so.
But how to respond and fight back is not an easy question. I am more convinced than ever that the answer is not simply more screaming and shouting. It is not holding another march in Washington. It is not attacking the President’s character. His personal behavior is baked into the cake, and it is just not relevant to most Americans. Yes, that is sad, but it is true. Then how do we do a better job of helping our family and our neighbors understand that there is indeed another way forward? Millions of good and decent people concluded that Donald Trump’s middle finger to the establishment was a winning message. As Bill Clinton famously said, “Americans will choose strong and wrong over weak and right every time.” Once again, Bubba is correct.
Are there a significant percentage of Americans who are racist and sexist? Of course. I’ll let others debate how many people fall into that bucket. Is it as high as 30-40%? I think so. As I’ve said many times, those folks have always existed. The Oath Keepers and Proud Boys are
not new. They may have had different names in the past, but the ideology is the same. They used to wear white sheets and swastikas, now they wear jeans and a flak jacket. They espouse White Supremacy pure and simple. While disgusting and abhorrent to the values most of us hold dear, those groups are never going to change. But, and this is a big but, there will never be enough of them to sway elections. Be disgusted by them. Reject their vitriol, but do not spend a lot of time thinking about how to win them over. That ain’t happening. Instead, focus on sharpening our own message of optimism and inclusion. Appeal to mainstream Americans who believed that Donald J. Trump was speaking for them.
How do we do that? My feeble attempt will be to use this blog to talk about ideas and values. I vow to stop screaming, shouting, and name calling. When speaking with those in my circle who embrace the madness, I will be respectful and simply articulate what I believe are common sense solutions that have the ability to bring us all together.
One of my graduate school classmates was the Superintendent of Schools in Culpepper, Virginia. He often said, “Don, the problem with common sense is that it just is not very common.” So, over the next few visits to the Front Porch, I will lay out an approach to the most controversial issues that are confronting the nation. I will limit the discussion to one or two issues at a time. We know what those issues are: immigration, DEI, climate change, health care, fiscal responsibility, and crime. There are others, but those seem to be the big enchiladas. On these major issues, I believe that the majority of Americans have concluded that MAGA Republicans stand with “them” while Democrats stand with the “others.” Our challenge is to have honest discussions about each of these issues. It will require my friends on the Democratic side of the aisle to stop parsing every statement in an attempt to determine whether or not it will offend the sensibilities of a specific group. That drives people crazy. Start speaking from the heart. It means talking like normal people and not like a bunch of professors in an Ivy League faculty lounge. It means embracing a little bit of common sense. And it involves listening, truly listening.
We won’t win the battle of ideas overnight, but little by little in civil discussions from the Pacific to the Atlantic, decency can prevail again. You know the family up the street, and the aunts and uncles who come to your family birthday parties, who voted for Donald Trump. In many cases, you love them, and they love you. They are not the enemy. They are not evil. But they have concluded that the world as they know it, does not work for them, and they hold Democrats responsible. We may not like that, but it is a fact. It is time to change the narrative. We can do it.
Not only can we do it, we must do it. Disinformation is a real challenge to American Democracy. People are bombarded with misinformation at an alarming rate. The right-wing echo chamber is already working overtime to convince the public that the President did not really suspend all federal funding and that it was all a ruse by the media and Trump opponents to scare Americans. Of course that is not true, but millions of Americans now believe the recent funding crisis never took place.
In the next few visits to the Front Porch, I will focus on improving the Democratic message on the issues that voters actually care about. We don’t have to scream, but we damn sure have to
connect with main street. I will also start a regular feature called simply, “They said this,” which will be followed up by “Here are the facts.” It will be my small attempt to break through the lies in hopes that at least a few of my friends and family will at least pause and say, “Hmm, that’s interesting.” So here we go.
They Said This
In her first press briefing, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated the following, “This administration believes that birthright citizenship is unconstitutional.”
Here Are the Facts
The very first sentence of the 14th amendment states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
As Jim Valvano cried, “Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.”
Don Mohler is the former Baltimore County Executive and President and CEO of Mohler Communication Strategies. He may be reached at don@donmohler.com.
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